by Frank Harris
Frank Harris
My life and loves Vol. 2
FOREWORD
The first volume of my autobiography was condemned savagely from one end of the English-speaking world to the other and especially by selfstyled men of letters and journalists. One would have said that I had taken the bread out of their mouths, they made such an outcry. Strangely enough, the anathemas were louder and bitterer in England than in America; but what touched me more nearly, there were two notable exceptions. Bernard Shaw wrote that he could have defended the book had it not been for the illustrations, which were for the most part photographs of pretty, naked girls-at worst inoffensive, I should have thought. Mencken, however, the best of American critics, went further than Shaw and declared boldly in print that the sex-urge, being the chief emotion in a healthy boy, should be described plainly; at the same time expressing his belief that if I pictured my later life in London as frankly, it would be a great human document.
Two righteous in two hundred millions. I hadn't expected a much larger proportion and their quality gives me hope. To alter long-established convention is difficult and dangerous and requires time. It is now some fifty years since some of us began to question the benefits of vaccination. Alfred Russel Wallace, Bernard Shaw and others have written and spoken against it; but the authorities, doctor-driven, made this inoculation with cow-pox compulsory and answered our reasonable arguments with force and various punishments. Yet we had right and reason on our side. Take one fact: in 1914, the last year for which we have official figures, there were four deaths from small-pox registered in Great Britain and six deaths from vaccination; to say nothing of the dozens that were not accurately reported, owing to the prepossession of the ordinary medical attendant. One such fact, you would think, would give any one pause. But you have men of sense and learning like Sir Henry Maine writing that "compulsory vaccination (inoculation with cow-pox) is in the utmost danger," not because there are-more deaths year after year in Great Britain from the remedy than there are from the disease but, if you please, because of "the gradual establishment of the masses in power," which is, he adds, "of the blackest omen for all legislation founded on scientific opinion." By "scientific opinion" in this case he means doctors' fees!
The childish unreason of the world fills me with fear for the future of humanity. On all sides I still hear idiotic defences of the World War in spite of its fifty millions of untimely deaths and the consequent misery and impoverishment of our whole generation. The lying slogan, "the war to end war," has not even put an end to armaments or munitions-makers. The old lies are as popular as ever and pass uncontradicted, almost unquestioned.
Science is giving us every day new powers, and with the decline of religion our morality has positively diminished, not to say disappeared. The nations are growing daily stronger and more selfish. The struggle between the nations for world empire may be said to have had its first act in the World War. It looks as if the United States and the English Confederation were sure to emerge as the most powerful; with Russia next in the race. But if the combative spirit in the individual is not repressed, there may yet be wars of annihilation wherein the present races of men may be blotted out. It is our task to form if we can a new religion or at least a new morality. And the new moral laws must be laws of health and laws of reason. We have been told a good deal about our duty to our neighbour; but first we must learn our duty to ourselves and we must study our bodies at least as carefully as our minds.
The English and American people have enormous, preponderant power, power of numbers, power of wealth, power of almost unassailable position; but who does not see that their strength is out of all proportion to their brains.
They are at the head of the industrial world; but they have no corresponding position in the world of science, or art or literature. We must copy the Germans and endow scientific research; we must copy the French and endow the arts and we must certainly imitate them by freeing literature from the silly prohibitions of an outworn Puritanism. That at least is my most mature opinion, and accordingly I have taken it on myself to set the example in this field. Does anyone imagine that we can hope to produce a greater Balzac while respecting the conventions of the Sunday School and using euphemisms such as our "little Mary"?
Everyone admits today that painters and sculptors should be free to represent the naked human figure, but the moment a writer claims similar freedom he is boycotted and disgraced, his books are seized and burned and he may think himself lucky if he escapes fine and imprisonment. Yet the evil results of this ostrich policy are surely plain enough and well enough known.
In this volume, in which I propose to tell the intimate history of half a dozen famous contemporaries, the three greatest and most famous died in the flower of manhood of syphilis and two of the three were English. In the World War more than one in four of our American officers had suffered or was suffering from this foul disease. It is bred and fostered by secrecy and prudery: Voltaire knew that "when modesty goes out of manners, (moeurs, Lat: mores) it goes into speech."
No one need read our books unless they wish to; the conventiclers and churches will always be able to signify their disapprobation; but why should they be allowed to make of their prejudice a law and punish others for not rejoicing in their blindness? No one can answer Milton's plea in favour of always letting "truth grapple with falsehood."
In this matter the time-spirit is with me and all the highest authorities. In France Flaubert was prosecuted for writing and publishing Madame Bovary; but a generation later the Nona of Zola passed unpersecuted and a generation later still La garconne of Victor Marguerite was published freely.
In England too there is progress, but it is backward. Thirty years ago Burton was allowed to publish his Arabian Nights privately, and send it through the post; today he would be imprisoned for the crime. Yet the greatest writers are all in favour of freedom. I want the unprejudiced to consider a few of the undoubted authorities.
One evening after dinner Goethe read to Eckermann several scenes from Hanswurst's Hochzeit, or John Sausage's Marriage, written or at least begun in the poet's prime; Eckermann compares it with Faust for creative vigour and freedom; but adds at once that it goes "beyond all limits"; and he can not even give any excerpt to show its force and freedom. Goethe himself admits that he cannot publish it in Germany. "In Paris I would have been able to publish it," he adds, "but not in Frankfort or Weimar."
This shows sufficiently what Goethe's opinion on free speech was; for the limits in Germany were and are far wider than in England or America. Let me quote another and equally great writer. Here is a small part of what Montaigne wrote on this subject, and Montaigne, as Sainte-Beuve declares is "the wisest of all Frenchmen"; I use Florio's translation: Non pudeat dicere quod non pudeat sentire-"Let us not be ashamed to speak what we shame not to think… For my part I am resolved to dare speak whatsoever I dare do.
And am displeased with thoughts not to be published. The worst of my actions or conditions seem not so ugly unto me as I finde it both ugly and base not to dare to avouch them…" And again-"Both wee and they (men and women) are capable of a thousand more hurtful and unnatural corruptions than is lust or lasciviousness. But wee frame vices and weigh sinnes not according to their nature but according to our interest…" And still in the same chapter: "What monstrous beaste is this whom his delights displease…" And finally: "Few I know will snarle at the liberty of my writings that have not more cause to snarle at their thoughts-looseness."
And not only are the greatest German and French writers on my side but also the best Americans. I have already more than once adduced Whitman's faith and practice on this subject. In spite of a strange inarticulateness I regard him as the grea
test of all Americans; but Poe is continually classed with him and accordingly I am eager to give Poe's considered opinion. Here are his words:
If any ambitious man have a fancy to revolutionize at one effort the universal world of human thought, human opinion, and human sentiment, the opportunity is his own-the road to immortal renown lies straight, open, and unencumbered before him. All that he has to do is to write and publish a very little book. Its title should be simple-a few plain words-My Heart Laid Bare. But this little book must be true to its title.
Now, is it not singular that, with the rabid thirst for notoriety which distinguishes so many of mankind-so many, too, who care not a fig what is thought of them after death, there should not be found one man having sufficient hardihood to write this little book? To write, I say. There are ten thousand men who, if the book were once written, would laugh at the notion of being disturbed by its publication during their life, and who could not even conceive why they should object to its being published after their death. But to write it-there is the rub. No man dare write it. No man ever will dare write it. No man could write it, even if he dared. The paper would shrivel and blaze at every touch of the fiery pen!
I wonder did even Poe realize how difficult it is to tell the truth about oneself.
It is not merely a question of fear, as he seems to think; the paper might shrivel and I should not care a jot. German-American mediocrities might go on prating of my "literary and moral suicide," and the American authorities might go on making bonfires of my books in public, while saving from the flames copies enough to fill their pockets or gratify their taste in private.
What would it matter to me? But is my attempt futile? That's the question. Is it possible truly to mirror in words the whole soul of man and this magical incomprehensible mystery of a world?
I thought that if I used Truth and described the intense sex-urge of my youth simply, at the same time showing how passionately eager I have always been to learn and grow at all costs, that at any rate the porch of the temple would be significant and appealing.
My first volume taught me that Truth was a mortal enemy of Beauty. I remember once measuring the distance between the pillars of the Parthenon on the Acropolis and finding that it was never exactly the same; the pillars looked to be of equal size and at an equal distance one from the other; but it was all a delusion of our seeing and the rhythmic beauty of the colonnade is surely due to inexactitude.
Was this why Goethe wrote Wahrheit und Dichtung-Fact and Fiction Out of My Life? He saw that he could not write the naked truth and accordingly admitted the poetry?
Should I follow his example?
His autobiography is dull, even tedious; yet if he had tried to tell the truth, how fascinating it would have been. We should have known Frederika and Mignon and Madame Von Stein and a host of other passionate women to the heart's core; even his cook-wife would have thrown new light on what was prosaic in him and German-sentimental. We should have known Goethe infinitely better and he was well worth knowing. As he himself said:
Willst du ins Unendliche schreiten,
Geh nur in Endlichen nach alien Seiten.
As soon as I first read it, I knew that this was my life's motto. The fact is we men cannot deal with absolutes. Truth is not for us; pure Light we cannot even
see; but a nearer and ever nearer approximation to truth should be our endeavour.
One would have thought that the World War showed the danger of our ordinary aggressive Ideal clearly enough; yet the World War and its many millions of young and vigorous lives all lost is no worse than the hating, snarling and snapping of these dachshunds, poodles and bulldogs that are now making of Europe a hell on earth! And America, the America of Whitman and Lincoln, will stand aside forsooth and fill her pockets and see injustice done!
To man propose this test
Thy body at its best
How far shall that project thy Soul
On its lone way?
What hope is there for humanity save in confession and reform; in truth and in love. We must construct a new ideal of life and build for ourselves a new faith: the arrogant, combative, prudish ideal of the past must be finally discredited and discarded.
And if all the ways of love are beautiful to me, why should I not say so? All the girls and women I have met and loved have taught me something; they have been to me the charm and the wonder, the mystery and the romance of life. I have been from the Cape to Cairo; and from Vladikavkas to Vladivostok; but one girl has taught me more than I could find in two continents. There is more to learn and love in one woman's spirit than in all the oceans. And their bodies are as fascinating-thank God! — as their souls.
And all the lessons they have taught me have been of gentleness and generosity, of loving-kindness and tender pity, of flower-soft palms and clinging lips, and the perfume of their flesh is sweeter than all the scents of Araby, and they are gracious-rich in giving as crowned queens. All that is amiable and sweet and good in life, all that ennobles and chastens, I have won from women. Why should I not sing their praises or at least show my gratitude by telling of the subtle intoxication of their love that has made my life an entrancing romance?
The soul of life to me has always been love of women and admiration of great men.
For many years only two men appealed to me as guides in life's labyrinth, Jesus and Shakespeare; twin spirits of intensest appeal; then in maturity others like Goethe and Heine, Leopardi, Keats and Blake, Nietzsche, Wagner and Cervantes, Cezanne, Monet, Rodin and a host of others; my contemporaries who taught me that they too shared my striving and were proud of their singular achievement: this admiration of great men and especially of great artists is the other side of my religion.
In the world I have made many friends and found kindness at least equal to my own; sunny days of joy and nights moonlit with mystery and no foe to be found anywhere save ignorance, no enemy save corsets, prohibitions and conventions, no boredom save hypocrisy and want of thought, no God save my own love of the highest, no devil except my own appalling limitations in sympathy and feeling.
Yet the "unco guid" tell me that this honest attempt of mine to relate in simplest words the story of my earthly pilgrimage will do harm and not good, corrupt and not fortify. They lie and they know it, or the population of the world would diminish as rapidly as it is increasing.
But one warning I must give: this, my second volume, will not be so exact and painfully true as the first for several reasons. First of all, as soon as my fears of life, the dread that I might not be able to earn a good living, had been blotted out by my success as a youth in the United States, life itself grew more fascinating to me. I realized that I could fashion it, almost at will, could travel or study as I pleased and so could develop myself almost as I wished. True, I had learned that I had dreadful, natural limitations; I could never be a great athlete, I was not big enough; nor a first-rate shot, my eyes were astigmatic; but I believed that within certain narrow limits I could do a great deal with myself and assuredly improve my mind and heart out of recognition. I resolved to do this; but first of all I wished to keep my word to Professor Smith and spend three or four years studying in Germany and afterwards at least one year at the University of Athens; a scholar I must be, even if I were never to be learned.
Alas! life in my Lehrjahre was infinitely interesting to me, so I took few notes and must now trust my memory, even for Important facts.
It is a paradox that may serve as a truth that an excellent memory is the source of much falsehood. In talking to my friend Professor Churton Collins once, I found that his extraordinary and minute exactitude came from a bad memory; he could not pin a date or a fact or a line of poetry in his head and so was compelled to verify all his statements. On the other hand, I had a most excellent memory, as I have said, especially for words; but even as a young man I had found out that my memory, even of poetry or prose, was often vitiated by time. Now and then my memory altered this word or that in a poem, sometimes bett
ering the original; but more often debasing the wordvalue in favour of extra sonority. My one natural endowment, a very strong and resonant bass voice, injured my memory.
As I came to maturity I found that my memory suffered in a different way; it began to color incidents dramatically. For example, I had been told a story by someone, it lay dormant in me for years; suddenly some striking fact called back the tale and I told it as if I had been present and it was fulfilled with dramatic effects, far beyond the first narration.
I am no longer a trustworthy witness; yet more honest, I dare swear, than any Rousseau or Casanova of them all. Hamlet declares he could accuse himself of dreadful faults, but takes care never to hint even at the wild sensuality and mad, baffled jealousy which he pours out in floods on his unhappy mother, who, for love of lewdness, stands to him for his faithless mistress. I intend to accuse myself of all my worst faults, for already I notice that my mind is so confirmed a partisan that if I don't put in all the shadows, there will be little likeness to humanity in my self-coloured portrait. To write one's life truthfully one should keep a complete diary and record, not only facts; but motives-fears, hopes and imaginings-day by day at very considerable length. It is altogether too late for me to begin such a work; but from today on (November 22nd, 1923) I propose to keep such a careful record that when I come to this last lap of the race I may be able to put down the true truth in every particular. Yet no man's mind can mirror truth perfectly.
But whether I can tell the truth or not does not alter the fact that I mean even in this second volume to keep as near the truth as I can.
The soul of the first volume was the insane sex-urge of healthy youth and the desire to learn and grow and become someone of note in life. The inspiration of this second volume is the realization of the virtue of chastity, or, if you will, of total abstinence from all sex-pleasure for years and its effect not only upon character but upon the mind, and especially upon the creative power.